Two young men accused of picking up a teenage tourist in the French Quarter, driving her to Slidell and gang raping her with three friends told a St. Tammany Parish jury Wednesday that the woman consented to the sex. But the young woman told the jury she'd been threatened into submission and was terrified the whole time.

Times-Picayune archiveSt. Tammany Parish Justice Center in Covington

Ralph Robertson, 20, and Jerrell Payton, 19, both of Pearl River, are on trial for aggravated rape which, upon conviction, carries a mandatory life sentence.

Chance Michael Ross, 21, of Slidell, pleaded guilty in February to forcible rape, promising in exchange to testify against the other four. Ross testified against Elroy Cooper, 21, of Pearl River, and Joshua Reed, 24, of Slidell, at their trial for aggravated rape. A jury found both guilty of lesser charges: Cooper of simple rape and Reed of forcible rape. Reed was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Ross and Cooper are scheduled for sentencing next month.

The woman, then 19, and two of her friends were visiting from Kentucky. Around dusk on the night of Oct. 25, 2008, they went to Bourbon Street and did some sightseeing, she told the jury.

Robertson and Payton testified that they and three friends left the north shore for the Quarter, hoping to sneak, underage, into nightclubs. They were turned away.

Their stories of how the two groups met began similarly: the boys' car was parked on Canal Street and, on the way back to the car around 2:30 a.m., the two groups crossed paths on the street. The boys offered marijuana, and one girl agreed.

In February, the young woman told a different jury that she willingly got into the boys' car, assuming they would stay parked while smoking, then she would get out. At this trial, though, she and her friends testified that she was "swarmed" by the group of boys and "herded" against her will into the car.

Taken in car

"I feared for my life the moment I got in the car," she told Assistant District Attorneys Nick Noriea Jr. and Jason Cuccia.

The men testified that she was the last one to get into the car and sat down willingly on someone's lap. Robertson, who was then 17, said she grabbed his shirt and told him he was cute. He thought she was "liking on" him, he said.

But the girl told the jury she tried to get out of the car. Her friends testified they saw the back door of the car open quickly, then slam shut, which they believed was her attempting to escape.

Payton, then 16, drove to Slidell. Looking for marijuana, he pulled into a friend's driveway, he testified.

All of the men got out of the car, leaving the woman inside. Payton got back in the car first and had sex with the her. He said she climbed on top of him; she said he raped her. She didn't resist, she said, because there was nothing she could do with a man on top of her and five others outside.

When Payton finished, the others got into the car, two by two, and had sex with her.

Robertson, who was in the second group, testified that he asked her if she wanted to perform oral sex on him. She told him she did, he said. The girl testified that she was forced.

They all got back into the car and started driving.

One of the men continued having sex with her on the ride, the defendants testified. She told him she didn't want to have sex with him anymore and climbed off his lap, they said. She gave them no other indication she wasn't having a good time, they testified.

The girl, however, told the court that she pleaded the whole time for a phone and for them to take her back to her friends in New Orleans.

Trailer in rural St. Tammany

Instead, the group drove to a trailer in rural St. Tammany parish where, Payton said, he knew he could get some marijuana.

There, the girl testified, she was raped repeatedly for hours.

Payton had sex with her once in a bedroom at the trailer, he said. Robertson said he had sex with her in the bathroom. Both men said she agreed to -- even initiated -- the activity.

The girl said she couldn't remember how many times she was raped or who raped her when.

"I remember time after time, for hours, having someone inside me," she told the court. "It was like they took turns."

They let her call her friends only once and only after blocking the number. Reed, the older of the men, pulled a gun on her when she resisted, she told police.

She didn't put up a fight, she said. "I feel like that's the only reason I'm alive."

Credibility questioned

In the living room, the woman told the court, someone raped her with a bottle and took a picture.

Later, the men dropped her off at a gas station. Robertson told the court that she gave him a hug. The girl, who said she never hugged him, called the police and was taken, sobbing, to the hospital.

Robertson's defense attorney, Melissa Valdivia, noted that she'd never before -- not in a previous trial or in any police reports -- mentioned the incident with the bottle.

She asked Judge Richard A. Swartz whether she could introduce evidence refuting that testimony. With the jury outside the courtroom, the girl was presented her with her own blog, including an entry entitled "I was a liar," which described a childhood of compulsive lying.

The girl said the entry was fiction: meant to amuse her friends.

"That's how I express myself," she said.

Valdivia argued that the blog admits that she "creates outrageous, fictitious stories for attention."